Themes of Loss in "The Shawl" and "Bone Black"

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The loss of a family member is always hard to deal with and it affects everyone differently. Some people are open about their feelings and others bottle them up. In terms of relationships within a family, usually the closest is between the parent and child. When this relationship is cut short or is nonexistent because of a loss it can be especially devastating. The loss of a family member does not always refer to an actual physical loss, but can also refer to an emotional distance put between two people. In “The Shawl” by Louise Erdrich, there is an example of a physical loss and its effects on the family, while in “Bone Black” by Bell Hooks the loss shown is of the emotional kind and it's aftermath. It is interesting to view these stories side by side, as they showcase how both types of loss effect the family. In “The Shawl” by Louise Erdrich, a father struggles with the pain he feels from the loss of his sister at a very young age. Unfortunately, he deals with this loss later in life by self medicating with alcohol and in turn is lost to his own children. When the father was a boy, he is separated from his sister because his mother was moving out after it was revealed she was cheating on his father. The boy stays with his father but is devastated when his mother and sister leave . When his sister and mother leave, the boy chases them until he is exhausted and cannot go any farther. The boy then nearly passes out in the snow, but his father comes to save him. The boy explains to his father about the manidoogs, or spirits, he saw in the woods. The father realizes that what the boy saw was not spirits but actual wolves and runs back into the woods to try to kill the wolves, before they killed his family. When the fath... ... middle of paper ... ...K.S. Kendler, R.C. Kessler, M.C. Neale, and C.A. Prescott. “Childhood Parental Loss and Alcoholism in Women: A Casual Analysis Using a Twin Family Design.” U.S. National Library of Medicine and National Institutes of Health (1996): 79-95. Web. 3 April 2011. Erdrich, Louise. “The Shawl.” Portable Legacies. Ed. Jan Zlotnik Schmidt and Lynne Crocket. Boston. Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2009. 360-365. Print. hooks, bell. “bone black.” Portable Legacies. Ed. Jan Zlotnik Schmidt and Lynne Crocket. Boston. Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2009. 335-338. Print. Shockley, Evelyn E. "Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood." African American Review 31.3 (1997): 552+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 4 Apr. 2011. Document URL http://go.galegroup.com.proxy-remote.galib.uga.edu/ps/i.do?&id=GALE%7CA20418562&v=2.1&u=uga&it=r&p=LitRC&sw=w

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